It’s Monday, I’m sick, and a little bitter about sports. The M’s, and specifically Chone Figgins, are on my nerves. So to are the “Don’t feel sorry for Seattle” comments Skip Bayless made regarding the Sonics, and I’ve heard one too many callers bash on Locker. And then comes this lovely article from Jon Paul Morosi, in which he updates us on Jeff Clement.-
Clement was the No. 3 overall pick that year — right after Upton and Gordon, right before Zimmerman, Braun, Romero and Tulowitzki. The Seattle Mariners took him. There was a lot to like: He was a handsome, hardworking kid who set the national high school home run record while starring for the Marshalltown (Iowa) Bobcats. He won the Johnny Bench Award as the nation’s top collegiate catcher during his final season at USC.
Clement checked three boxes where the Mariners were deficient: catcher, power, left-handed hitter. The Seattle scouts were smitten by Tulowitzki, too. Tulowitzki told FOXSports.com contributor Tracy Ringolsby that Seattle had planned to take him until the night before the draft.
What changed?
“They said they had a shortstop in the organization, but no catchers, and therefore that made the pick easy,” Tulowitzki said.
Naturally, it all goes back to Yuniesky Betancourt.
Prince Fielder will hit the open market this winter, and I can’t help but wonder what a difference he would make to the Mariners offense. With Prince Fielder, the M’s could roll out an opening day line-up next year mirroring something like this-
That is a major league line-up right there, and one capable of winning 80-90 games. It’s amazing what happens when Jack Cust and Jack Wilson are replaced by Prince Fielder and Dustin Ackley.
Now, signing Prince will be no small task. Remember, he turned down 5/100 from Milwaukee last year, and he and Pujols will be the stars of the free agent class following this season. He is a Boras guy, only 27 years old after this season, and in his past 4 seasons, the guy is averaging 40 HR and 111 RBI.
What other teams might be interested in Prince? Let’s make some educated guesses through process of elimination. First, for money reasons alone, forget about Pittsburgh, Florida, Arizona, Tampa Bay, Oakland, Cleveland, Kansas City, San Diego, Milwaukee, and also the New York Mets will likely not be in the mix given their financial turmoil and the emergence of Ike Davis. We’re down to 20 teams.
Next, let’s assess team needs, and eliminate those NL teams who don’t have a 1B hole to fill. This is where the Reds, Phillies, Nationals, Rockies, and Giants are crossed off. In the AL, the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Twins, and White Sox already have a lot of money tied up at 1B/DH.
So who is left? 10 teams. Seattle, LA Angels, LA Dodgers, Baltimore, Texas, Houston, Toronto, St. Louis, Atlanta and the Cubs. One of these teams will sign Pujols, so really there will be 9 teams that have the money and need for a guy like Prince. Of course, some of these teams will prioritize pitching or other positions above 1B/DH. Atlanta, Houston, Baltimore, and Toronto strike me as teams that for various reasons will likely weed themselves out.
Thus, the top competition to sign Fielder, in my eyes, are the M’s, Rangers, Angels, Dodgers, St. Louis, and the Cubs; plus, whoever gets Pujols is off this list. Rumors are that Boras will be seeking 200 million for Prince, but in reality I see bidding starting around 7 yrs, 150 million. The M’s will need to have the highest offer on the table to lure Fielder, that much I am certain of, given the losing culture and location. He is a west coast guy having grown up in LA, but selling Prince on playing DH in Seattle could be tough. Jack Z drafted him and I think that’s a definite X factor.
So, assuming these facts are correct, would you like to see the M’s break the bank to the tune of 150+ million, and overpay for a guy who will play DH? I say yes, because we can’t contend without that big bat, and I don’t see his talent diminishing in the next 5 years. Oh, and the Felix clock is ticking…
In beating the M’s yesterday, Bruce Chen notched his 50th career win, to go against 50 losses. He has a 4.6 ERA over 12 MLB seasons, and what’s more, he has played for 10 teams. Bruce Chen is not all that great, but he is fascinating nonetheless.
Now you know a little more about Bruce Chen, and knowledge, is power.
None of these points deserve a full post, because full posts on goodguyssports.com typically involve hours of research, in depth analysis, and material worth publishing. I don’t think any of these fit that bill, but please read anyway.
1) We’ve yet to mention the unbelievable comeback on Monday night. In short, the M’s were down by 7 in the 7th, at which point they had about a 0.6% chance of winning. Craziness ensued and Seattle pulled out a miraculous victory. My first thought watching this was, this is what makes baseball great. In baseball, there is no clock. So even when the M’s were down 7 in the 7th, Toronto couldn’t just milk the clock, no, because in baseball you’re required to get 27 outs, no matter how long it takes. Baseball and golf are two of my favorite sports, and neither involve time. Maybe I’m oddly attracted to this aspect.
2) It feels like every time I watch a Miguel Olivo at bat, he swings and misses at least twice. I have not seen every one of his at bats, and sometimes you draw conclusions, but the stats don’t back it up. But in this case, Olivo really does swing and miss more than any player in baseball. SWSTR% is an advanced stat that measures the percentage of strikes that are swung at, and missed. Olivo leads MLB (eligible players) by swinging and missing an astounding 24% of the time he swings at strikes. Rod Barajas is 2nd in baseball at 19%. Olivo has dominated this statistic in recent years. In fact, he has led every year since 2007. How many guys can say the’ve led baseball in a stat category 5 years running?! Jack Cust is 2nd on the M’s in SWSTR%, at 12.4%. Cust sure seems to swing and miss a lot, but Olivo still has him beat by double the whiffs.
The bottom line is when you’re a big league hitter, and you swing at a ball in the stike zone, you should make contact around 90% of the time, even if it’s just to foul it off. I’d like to watch Miguel in BP sometime, because he probably swings and misses at every 4th pitch.
3) I just found out that when you see a bunch of “K” signs tracking how many strikeouts a pitcher has, a backwards K means the batter struck out looking. I thought fans just got lazy and put them up that way. Oops.
4) When Guti returns, in a couple weeks Lord willing, the team will have a decision to make, because unless an injury, trade, or major slump occurs, there is no obvious candidate to be demoted. Those on the block include Langerhans, Saunders, Bradley, Cust, Kennedy, Rodriguez, or perhaps a bullpen arm like Wilhelmson or Ray (don’t get me started on Chris Ray). I won’t get into the implications for each guy, but at this point, it’s hard to justify demoting or cutting any of these position players, for various reasons. These things tend to work themselves out, otherwise the M’s could have a logjam in the outfield/DH position.
5) Finally, this thought came to me yesterday as I drooled watching Justin Smoak’s opposite field homerun. Where would the M’s be had Ruben Amaro (Phillies GM) not called last winter and offered Cliff Lee?
Think about it. If we hadn’t landed and then traded Lee, we would essentially have Phillippe Aumont, Tyson Gillies and Juan Ramirez (none of which are past AA), instead of Justin Smoak, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke and Matt Lawson, plus the immeasurable joy of watching Cliff Lee for 4 months! I doubt very much if an Aumont, Gillies, Ramirez package could have landed us the coup we got from Texas. And also, if we had 101 losses with Cliff Lee 1/2 the year, how many losses might we have had without him? Yikes, that’s a disturbing thought.
It’s off to KC for our 4-8 Mariners. Oddly enough, despite a poor record, the M’s have split their first 4 series, winning 2 and losing 2. This year is hardly about wins and losses, but I would be pleased if we could somehow scratch back to .500 at some point.
– Jack Hanahan starts at 3B for Cleveland. Jose Lopez starts at 2B for Colorado. These statements are surprising, but I should probably point out that Hanahan was 3-5 today with a homerun and 3 runs scored, while Lopez was 2-5 with a homerun, 2 RBI, and a stolen base.
– Seattle’s odds of winning the divison are about the same as the odds of Jack Cust hitting a home run. If the M’s fate this season came down to one at bat, in which Cust had to hit a home run, our odds would be slim, but I would definitely watch to see what happens. This is why I will watch the Mariners this year, and I hope you are encouraged to as well.
– In case you missed Jeff Sullivan’s post on SB Nation, here are the 5 worst team slogans for 2011.
(5) Toronto Blue Jays: Hustle + Heart (2.0)
(4) Seattle Mariners: Ready to play
(3) Houston Astros: We are your Astros
(2) Florida Marlins: Catch our moves
(1) Kansas City Royals: Major League moments- The Mariners set modest expectations when they promised that their players would be ready to play baseball, but this is setting expectations as low as expectations get. All this slogan does is confirm that the Royals play Major League Baseball, and that over the course of their season there will be moments that take place during their games. It doesn’t say anything about whether those moments will be good moments or bad moments, memorable moments or forgettable moments. It just says that there will be moments.
– The Mariners are a 1/2 game back in the AL West. If they are to get out of last place, they had better start playing some games.
– I was browsing on USS Mariner today and I stumbled across a March ’09 post. The entertaining part was the comments section, as it often is. Some comments are stupid when they are written in present day, and the stupidity is often multiplied 10 fold as time passes. Here was the one that caught my eye-
Wait about 2 more years when Tui, Carp, Moore, Olson, Fields, and (most importantly) Aumont get called up among others and are more polished as major leaguers, along with the young guys we have now on the roster such as Jeff Clement that haven’t broken out yet but should at some point
I don’t know what to say about this, other than, yikes.
– Finally, opening day is refreshing for a number of reasons. For me, it signals the end of winter, though looking outside does not exactly back up that statement. But another refreshing part for me is that for the next 6 months, I can sit back and watch the most pure sport there is. Oh sure some will argue baseball is far from pure, and when it comes to balls and strikes, and safe vs. out, mistakes are made. But how often does a game end and one thinks, “boy, the umpires cost us that game.” In football, soccer, and basketball, refs drive me nuts, and there are times where I blame them for a part of my team’s loss. This rarely happens in baseball, and it is refreshing. No more Pac-10 officiating!
The big news today is basketball related, with Isaiah Thomas announcing, rather unexpectedly, that he will indeed forgo his senior season at UW. He’s off to the NBA, which sucks for Husky fans. Time will tell whether this is a wise decision by IT, but I’m happy for him. Next year’s expectations will be lower now, and it could very well be our last year watching Terrence Ross, but the team should still be good, and contend for the conference yet again.
With that news, I’m officially closing basketball talk on the blog, until at least the draft in June. Why? Because today is opening day! As Andrew noted, things have been dry on here lately, but nothing like some M’s baseball to stir conversation. In case you have not heard, the 25 man roster is official. Looking over the team last night, I started ranking guys in my mind, and that’s what this post is all about. In addition to ranking the 25 man roster, in terms of most valuable to the team in 2011, I’m also throwing 3 more guys into the conversation: Ackley, Gutierrez, and Aardsma. The latter two are on the DL, and Ackley will probably be up sometime in June, so they belong on this list too.
Ranking the Roster (Most Valuable to Least Valuable)
1- Felix Hernandez—He is the King of Seattle, and the best pitcher on planet Earth. Yes, Felix is the Mariners’ most valuable player. Go away trade rumors! 2- Ichiro—The team’s best hitter and most valuable everyday player. Also, the coolest Mariner ever. 3- Justin Smoak—I want to fall in love with Justin Smoak, and so does this city, but he has a lot to prove. IMHO, this guy is the lynchpin to the M’s offense in 2011. 4- Franklin Gutierrez—I fear for Guti’s long-term health with every day that passes without an explanation, but assuming this mystery stomach ailment gets treated, Guti is the team’s best defender, and a top 5 hitter, a valuable asset indeed. 5- Milton Bradley—Depending on which Milton shows up, batting 3rd, Bradley could easily lead the team in production this year. But can he stay healthy AND out of trouble? I wouldn’t bet on it. 6- Erik Bedard—Hard to argue that a guy who did not pitch last year could hold much value, but IF healthy, Bedard provides huge value to this team. And IF his spring performance is an indicator of what’s to come, his worth is as high as a #2 starter. 7- Chone Figgins—This guy had better bounce back, and I expect he will now that he’s back at 3rd and settled into Seattle. The M’s should be annoying to play, and Figgy leads that annoyance. 8- Jason Vargas—I still don’t think of Jason Vargas as a #2 starter, but he earned this spot after last season. Can he provide an encore? 9- Jack Cust—Batting clean-up for your Seattle Mariners…Jack Cust. Really? You better believe it! He will strike out a ton, but I gotta think he is an upgrade at DH, and he is an awesome interview. 10- Miguel Olivo—The team’s main acquisition this winter, Miguel can’t be worse than our catchers last season, but he must improve on his first go around in Seattle if he is to win over the fans. Continue reading →
Today the newest batch of M’s commercials were released. I like them all, but which is your favorite? Check them out and then vote. Oh and apparently the 2011 slogan is “Ready to Play.” If that statement is true, the team will definitely be better than last season.
Part of me wonders where this Husky basketball team would be today had goaltending been called on Gant’s last second shot down in Tucson. Would that win have propelled the Dawgs to a 3-0 finish at home, rather than a disappointing 1-2 finish? At 14-4 in conference, the Huskies would be looking at a 3 or 4 seed, not to mention winning another pac-10 championship. Of course there is no way to know what would have happened, and I’m not suggesting the Derrick Williams swat was the only turning point in this season, because there have been many ups and downs–the Gaddy injury, the Venoy speculation, the Northwest road trip, heck, even back to when Terrence Jones de-committed. Adversity is a part of every sports season, the good team overcome it, the not so good ones fold. Had the Huskies won that game in Arizona, a lot of the adversity may have been overcome, and again, who knows what the confidence boost could have done for the team down the stretch.
I don’t know what it is about playing USC at home, but just like last year, it seems the season has hit rock bottom following a home loss to SC. Never would I have thought this team, which lost only senior, albeit a dang good one, would finish the conference regular season with the same 11-7 record. A lot of teams would be happy with that record, but the Romar era has spoiled us fans into taking a lot for granted, especially winning at home. Not to mention expectations were quite high 3 months ago, and the way this team played on certain nights only heightened the bar.
Few things are as gratifying in sports than watching your team, with low expectations, come out of nowhere to exceed anyone’s wildest imagination (i.e. ’10-’11 Seahawks). Of course the flip side is there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing your team not meet it’s potential. That’s the road this Husky team is on, and time is running out to put this thing back together. If a new team does not emerge on Thursday, rallying around the newest adversity (yes, I know about the Venoy suspension), this season will be remembered for high expectations and glimpses of greatness, but crippling inconsistency (i.e. Brandon Morrow).
Andrew Long
dpscansen
Joe Loughery
Matthew
The Good Guys Sports Blog 